The voice on the phone sounded calm to Tina Kropelin.

It said her daughter had just taken a spill at cheerleading practice, and she should come get her.

As Kropelin headed to Holmen High School in western Wisconsin, she worried it might be a broken wrist or a sprained ankle. Her daughter, Brittany Noffke, was a freshman and already a varsity cheerleader, a "flyer" who hit the dramatic height of stunts with a smile on her face. Crutches would make her crazy, Kropelin thought.

She found Brittany with an ice pack to her head. She had fallen off a teammate's shoulders, and her head had smashed into the tile floor of the school cafeteria.

Conscious but confused, Brittany said she and two other cheerleaders had attempted a stunt their coach suggested, one they'd never tried together. The last thing Brittany remembered was making it to the top and telling herself to stay still.

Ream more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/10/04/cnnheroes.sports.injuries/

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be developing a national protocol for the prevention and treatment of concussions in student-athletes, two U.S. lawmakers announced Tuesday.

The CDC's action comes as a response to the Concussion Treatment and Care Tools (ConTACT) Act, which stalled in Congress after being passed by the House of Representatives in September 2010.

The ConTACT Act would have required Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to "establish concussion-management guidelines that address the prevention, identification, treatment, and management of concussions in school-aged children" within two years of its passage. Within four years of its implementation, the secretary would be required to report to Congress how many states had adopted the guidelines and data regarding concussion frequency and second-impact syndrome among youth athletes.

But since the ConTACT Act never made it past the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, the CDC is taking matters into its own hands.

Read more: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/schooled_in_sports/2011/09/cdc_to_create_national_youth_concussion_guidelines.html

Playground activities and sports — particularly high school football — are sending an increasing number of children to the emergency room with concussions and other traumatic brain injuries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported today that hospitals have recorded a 62 percent increase over the last decade in children under the age of 19 suffering serious head injuries while playing sports and engaging in other physical activities.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2011/10/06/football-causing-more-reported-child-brain-injuries/

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's anti-concussion crusade continued this week with a warning. To players who break new rules banning violent hits to the head, Goodell said, we're watching.

The NFL has taken numerous steps to make the game safer. Concussions have been big news, with awareness and concern about sport-related head injuries at an all-time high. One result of this — more companies promoting anti-concussion products.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/2011/10/05/141074175/can-that-mouth-guard-really-prevent-a-concussion

Testing young athletes' thinking and memory skills in group settings, as is typically done before every season, may be less accurate than doing the tests individually, a new study finds.

Such tests are important because when athletes get head injuries, doctors often compare post-injury scores with preseason ones to see when they are recovered and ready to return to play.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/23/us-group-brain-tests-idUSTRE78M6SS20110923

As football teams take to fields across the nation, Purdue University researchers continue work to uncover how repeated head impacts affect high school athletes.

Read more: http://www.valpolife.com/index.php/sports/high-schools/13612

The thinking on brain trauma clearly is changing, not only in football but all youth sports. Increasingly, ankle-biter leagues are hiring athletic trainers, high school policies mandate medical clearance before a head-injured player can return to the field, and professional leagues are adopting tougher standards for helmets and the care of the heads inside them.

Still, it's not entirely clear how comprehensive the new policies are, or just which athletes most need protection.

Read more: http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/health/medical%3A-concussion-research-spurs-changes-in-sports

Mayo Clinic is piloting a telemedicine program that aims at filling gaps in concussion care for patients in rural Arizona.

Read more: http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/mayo-clinic-pilots-teleconcussion-program

College football players beware: Linebackers and linemen suffer more head impacts during a game than players in other positions, but running backs and quarterbacks endure the hardest and most severe blows to the head, a new study reports.

Read more: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/head-blows-on-the-football-field/

"A brain injury is not like an ankle or knee injury; you can't tape it up," said Dr. Allen Sills, a neurologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Sports Concussion Center. "Really, you can't play with a partial brain injury."

Only 10 percent of concussions lead to a loss of consciousness, according to Dr. Sills. And competitive players often feel compelled to play through the commoner, subtler symptoms like fatigue, headache and nausea.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/w_MindBodyResource/frostburg-state-university-football-player-dies-head-injury/story?id=14419796